Now, thanks to Cole and that bitch Dolan, he must spare the remaining minor players, and kill the people he holds most responsible. The lead Sex Crimes detective, Krakauer, died of a heart attack two days after he retired. (All to the good, as Krakauer was the only person with even a remote chance of tying together the names of the early victims.) Pike had arrested the Coopster, then sat in the witness chair at his trial and hammered the nails into De Ville's coffin, but Pike is now a fugitive.

That leaves one other.

The apartment now sealed, Sobek pulls De Ville's case file from its hiding place in the closet, along with the brittle, yellowed newspaper articles about De Ville's arrest. He has read these a hundred thousand times, touching the grainy photographs of the Coopster being led from the motel in handcuffs.

He touches them again now. He hates Wozniak, who spotted him at a Dunkin' Donut shop that day, and manipulated him into revealing what he knew. This asshole is using you, Wozniak had said. What this guy is doing to you is wrong, he said. Help me help you.

The Islander Palms Motel. Arrest. Prison. Dead.

Sobek closes his eyes, and puts away whatever is left of his feelings for DeVille. He has studied Pike, and learned well. Abandon humanity. Feel nothing. Control is everything. If you are in control, then you can re-create yourself. Become larger. Control everything.

Sobek closes his eyes, steadies his breathing, and feels an inner calm that only comes from certainty. He admires himself in the mirror: jeans, Nikes, gray sweatshirt with the sleeves cropped. He runs a hand over his quarter-inch hair, and imagines that he is not looking at Laurence Sobek, but is seeing Joe Pike. He flexes. The red arrows he had painted on his deltoids are gone, but he thinks that when this is over, he will have them tattooed there permanently. He rubs at his crotch, and enjoys the sensation.

Control.

He places the dark glasses over his eyes.

He has a cut-down double-barrel shotgun that he lifted from the Parker Center evidence room, and a box of twelve-gauge shells filled with #4 buckshot. He pulls the weight bench to the center of the floor, then fixes the shotgun to it with duct tape. He runs a cord from the knob to both triggers, rigged so that the gun will go off when the door opens, and pulls back the hammers.

He lays out the evidence that he wants Cole and the police to find, then lets himself out the back window. He will never return to this place.

Laurence Sobek drives away to do murder.

Dolan ripped away from Drusilla Sobek's house like the queen of the Demolition Derby. She was so excited she was shaking. "We got the sonofabitch. Right under our own goddamned noses, but we got him."

"No, Dolan, we don't have him yet. It's time to take it inside."

She glanced at me, and I knew what she was thinking. That she'd like to snap the cuffs on him herself and cut Krantz and Bishop and their whole damned Task Force out of the bust.

"This is what you wanted, Samantha. This is going to get you back on the team, but not if you piss off Bishop even more than he already is."

She didn't like it much, but she finally went along. "This guy works the day shift, so he's probably at Parker Center right now. I'm putting this on Bishop's desk in person. We've got the files and Wozniak's book. I'm giving Bishop the whole load, and fuck Krantz."

"Whatever. I've got to use a phone. Stop somewhere."

"Use mine. It's in my purse."

"I'd rather use a pay phone. It won't take long."

She glanced at me like I was crazy. "Sobek is there right now."

"I need a phone, Dolan."

"You're going to call Pike."

I just looked at her.

"I fuckin' knew it."

She jerked the Beemer into the nearest gas station, blasting past a crowd of people waiting to board a bus. She screeched up to the pay phones, and left the engine running.

"Don't take all goddamned day."

I did the same thing I'd done before, calling Pike's man, giving him the pay phone's number, then hanging up. Pike called back in less than two minutes. From the static I could tell he was on a cell phone.

"We were right, Joe. It's Sobek."

"Is he in custody?"

"Not yet. I wanted to tell you that we're bringing it to Bishop now. If we get lucky, Sobek will cop to Dersh. If not, maybe we'll find something that links him to it and clears you."

"It's going to bring up Woz."

"Yeah, it is. We've got to show Wozniak's notebook to tie Sobek to DeVille, and to Wozniak. Once the story breaks, they're going to dig into what happened between you in that room. I just wanted to warn you. After we're finished with Bishop, I'll call Charlie, then go see Paulette and Evelyn so they aren't caught flat."

"You won't have to. I will."

I didn't know what to say, but I smiled.

Dolan blew her horn.

Pike said, "It's been a long time. I guess it's time we spoke."

"Okay, but stay safe until this guy takes the weight for Dersh. You're still wanted, and we don't know what we'll get from him."

When I was back in her car, Dolan swerved through the gas station, cut in front of the bus, and blasted toward the Los Angeles River.

"Dolan, have you ever killed anybody in this thing?"

"Cinch your belt tighter if you're scared. You'll be fine."

I glanced at her and she was smiling. I guess I was smiling, too.

When we reached Parker Center, Dolan didn't bother going into the parking lot; she put it in the red zone out front. We trotted in, Dolan badging us past the desk guard. I looked at everyone we passed, wondering if Sobek would be standing there when the elevator doors opened, but he wasn't.

We pushed into Robbery-Homicide, Watts and Williams raising their eyebrows when they saw us. Dolan steamed straight into Bishop's office, surprising him on the phone.

Dolan said, "We've got the shooter."

He covered the phone, annoyed. "Can't you see I'm on the phone?"

She put the photograph of Laurence Sobek on his desk. "His real name is Laurence Sobek. Here's another picture when he was booked under his true name as a juvenile. He's our shooter, Greg. We got him."

Bishop told whoever was on the phone that he'd get back in five and hung up. He leaned closer to the pictures. Sobek had gained muscle and changed his appearance, but when the pictures were side by side you could tell they were the same guy.

"This is Woody something."

I said, "You know him as Curtis Wood. He's a civilian employee here. He pushes the mail cart around."

Krantz and Watts appeared in the door, Williams standing on his toes to see past them.

Krantz said, "Is there a problem, Captain?"

Dolan laughed. "Oh, please, Krantz. Like you could do something."

"They say he's our shooter, Harvey." Bishop squinted up from the pictures. "Where'd you get this booking picture?"

I said, "Sobek's juvenile record. We got the recent picture from Sobek's mother."

I showed them the pages we'd copied from Abel Wozniak's notebook, pointing out the passages about Sobek and DeVille, and their relationship, then the copy of Sobek's juvenile record showing Wozniak as one of his arresting officers.

Even as I said it, Krantz made a sour face as if he'd bitten into a rotten carrot. "All this proves is we've got someone working here under a false name. For all you know, he changed it legally because of the problems he had as a child."

"No, Krantz, we've got more than that."

Dolan said, "You find a connection yet between the six vics, Harvey?"

Krantz stared at her, suspicious. You could tell he wanted to say they weren't connected, but he knew she wouldn't have asked if she weren't about to drop a bomb. Instead, he glanced at me. "What's your connection in all of this?"